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Welcome to the 3rd annual Halloween episode, Episode 26. This time around we pay tribute to Harry Houdini who left this mortal coil on Halloween back in 1926. In addition to the stupefying feats of conjuring and illusion he was best known for, Houdini spent 30 years exhaustively researching spiritualism and the paranormal. Sitting with and studying the techniques of the best known mediums of the day, and ultimately being unconvinced that the were capable of their grandiose claims.

Welcome to Episode 25, once again it has been too long… This episode features some potentially landmark news from the world of Cryptozoology, but first things first…

Out of the gate we discuss the bizarre affliction that has come to be known as Morgellons disease. This condition, as yet unrecognized by the medical establishment, includes such symptoms as the growth of multi-colored fibers from the body that have been reported to move autonomously, and strange crystalline or granular residue that appears within lesions all accompanied by the feeling of insects crawling under the skin. The CDC has begun lookinginto it after several years of requests from those that suffer from it. However in some medical circles it continues to be looked at as a psychological rather than physiological condition. Then there are those that see the condition as a result of something more nefarious.

After that we take a look at a set of core components by which hauntings might be judged in order to come up with some type of standardized scientific perspective on what occurs in a haunting scenario. Along the way we touch a bit on Patternology and the Fortean perspective of holistic review rather than compartmentalized observation.

Finally, a piece I had to re-record after some breaking news today altered the story dramatically. Bigfoottracker.com, now working in cooperation with Searchingforbigfoot.com have announced that they have a Bigfoot corpse in their possession, and will be presenting their collected evidence on August 15th at a press conference in Palo Alto, CA. The creature is said to have been discovered in Northern Georgia, and additionally live creatures were also seen in the area at the time. This has been a twisted tale that first appeared on Cryptomundo.com about a month ago. Since that time several evidence free, taunting videos were posted and removed by the members of Bigfoottracker, and the alleged pathologist they had reviewing the corpse was found to be a fraud. The group admitted to hoaxing the pathologist story, but maintained they did have a body. Today a press release was issued fleshing out that claim, and there has been a leak of a photo. The story was covered by local papers but I didn’t see much else in the way of mainstream coverage, but I suspect that will be changing very soon. The photo is compelling, and I look forward to hearing more details from the press conference.

That’s all for now, I will hopefully have some additional information on the Sasquatch story in the coming days. I’m also hoping to clear out some of my back log of stories by updating the site more frequently between episodes of the show.

Welcome to episode 18, some of the little improvements I have been hoping to do for awhile finally got taken care of, so hopefully you’ll like those.

This time out we look at the legacy of Mary Toft, she was involved in a hoax in 1726 that drew the attention of the King of England and inspired perhaps the most famous of any trick in a magicians repertoire. Her story is outlined further in the book “The Girl Who Gave Birth To Rabbits: A True Medical Mystery,” which I am hoping to check out before too long.

Finally we take a look at the theory of palingenesy, the alchemical idea inspired by the work of Greek philosopher Lucretious that sought to explain ghosts and apparitions chemically, rather than metaphysically. The thought was that a body’s form resided in its salts, and by applying heat to those salts, you could regenerate the form of a dead or destroyed plant or animal as an apparition. This one is pretty interesting and I have been meaning to cover it for a few weeks so I hope you find it curious.

Well, this was intended to be the second annual Halloween episode… it is a bit late. Listen to it through pumpkin shaped headphones if you will. Halloween is a time of year and a feeling in the air, not simply a day on the calendar.

This episode looks into ghostly sightings and communication with the dead through various gadgetry. Our first stop is among the urban legends and paranormal sightings on a secluded lane known as Zombie Road in western St. Louis County. And looks briefly at investigations by missourighosts.net and the Missouri Paranormal Research Group.

Then it is off to 1930’s Britain for a peek at the contraptions of the Askir-Jobson Trianion Guild, who with information they claim to have received from a deceased colleague created devices to facilitate communication with spirits.

Another person who more recently claims to have received instructions from entities on building a device to communicate with the dead is Frank Sumption. His creation, quaintly called “Frank’s Box” or “The Ghost Box” uses more modern electronics to create what he believe is a live EVP receiver. You can check out the schematics for the device here, Coast to Coast AM did a show on the subject as well that you can check out here, and I have included a video of the device in action for you to judge for yourself.

A pillar of the pharmaceutical industry is working on a virtual reality rig that gives the user a window into the schizophrenics world, and then there is this look at how schizophrenia fits into the evolutionary chain.

Another team working on solving our world’s energy issues are looking at cow stomachs as the golden ticket to solve our woes… environmentalist/animal rights advocates heads explode at the conundrum.

Also a look at some research on the Orb Phenomenon from researchers associated with NASA and the Vatican where they find that orbs are indeed of paranormal origin. I think the question remains quite open, but they feel convinced.

That’s it for this episode, next one should come much sooner. The Spookatorium Caravan relocated in the last month and I will be able to get going now on some of the additional things I want to do to make the show better. Including finding a better microphone solution…

Two graduate students at MIT have determined that the human energygenerated by simply sitting on a stool will power 4 LED lights. They have extrapolated that out to harnessing the energy of concert crowds, commuters and general hustle and bustle of urban life into real life sustainable energy. Calling them “crowd farms,” they see it more as an example of potential than as a genuinely dependable source of power. The process involves pressure sensitive surfaces that use crystals or ceramics to translate that pressure into energy. That energy would be transformed into usable electricity by rotating coils and electromagnets. So the pressure of the stirring masses shuffling over the globe would ultimately be turned into the electricity they needed to power the places they were shuffling off to. The logistics of making something like this work beyond a controlled environment appear to be a long ways off however.

If you were to construct a “crowd farm” that was populated enough to generate a substantial amount of energy, it would seem to me a prison would not only be ideal, it would also be minimally objected to and easier to fly under the radar all together than a stadium, airport or shopping mall might be. It is a densely populated, controlled environment that the general public has little access to, and whose inhabitants lives have already been largely disregarded. There is no question the current prison system is overcrowded and new prisons are needed. The public doesn’t however want that to cost any more than it takes to keep their house from getting robbed or their kids from being shot. An eco friendly, energy efficient prison would be lauded as a grand achievement.

Electromagnetic fields are often pointed to by paranormal researchers as possible explanations for ghost sightings and other unexplained visions or hallucinations. The Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomenon (ASSAP) is researching this very thing. They refer to the magnetic disturbances as Experience Inducing Fields (EIF) and have in early research found them to be quite common in the average house at low levels and have several witnesses reporting the same hallucinations at the site of an allegedly haunted bed at Muncaster Castle in Cumbria that has quantifiably strong EIF activity. What would turning the ground beneath our feet into an active circuit do to the electromagnetic fields around us? Would that lead to mass hallucinations that could be used as a means of control or incapacitation? Self contained environments away from public view turned into warped realities for anyone deemed worthy of incarceration? It is all speculation at this point, even the science, but curious to ponder none the less.

Welcome to the newly renovated Spookatorium. With episode 15 I have expanded the focus beyond music and pulled open the beaten old trunk of the strange and unusual. Each episode will feature a handful of curious tales and the website will be updated frequently with additional content as I find stories of interest.

In addition you will hear the moving tale of the death of a vampire peacock struck down in one of the shadowy corners of New York City, and the citizen who would not let its passing go unnoticed. I have a haunted lighthouse to tell you about, and ladies and gentleman, you can buy it for a dollar! I also take a look at the alleged tales of haunting in a remote Michigan town. A small town in Mississippi sees a strange creatureon the loose, and doesn’t jump to cryptoid conclusions! An amphibious giant from beneath the sea with a hostile message is made an example of by the Dutch.